Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Bayonets, horses, and . . . . ships

Here, in case you missed it, is a link to an interesting pair of charts, interactive of course, from the Guardian. (That's a screenshot above; you'll have to click on the link to actually interact with it.) As you can see, the US Navy had the most ships in action during . . . World War II.

We have 11 carriers now, and no longer have any screw sloops, though in 1886 we had 14 of them. It's not the number of ships that's important, it's the kinds and how nimble we are in using them. Image from Simon Rogers via datamarket.com